Word Search
by Lionheart261
Summary: After narrowly avoiding death at the border, Callum, Rayla, and Zym find themselves with some down-time on their hands in Xadia. Taking advantage of the respite, Callum tries to expand his magical repertoire, but without knowing draconic, he doesn't make much headway. Fortunately, he has Rayla to help him out. (One-Shot. Season 3 speculation. Rayllum)


Rayla placed herself atop a rock face as she surveyed the landscape-the third such survey which she had conducted in twice as many minutes. Finally satisfied that their campsite, a cave set in one side of a large canyon, would not come under siege from Sol Regem or a hostile Elven raiding party, she leapt from the rock and made her way back to their campsite. On arrival, she found that Callum had busied himself working on a page in his notebook, Zym having snuggled up next to him and fallen asleep by the fire. Rayla smiled at the sight, finding herself thankful that the three of them were still alive after the events of that day, before she walked over to Callum and sat down next to him. He turned his head towards her slightly, smiling in response to her arrival before turning back to his work. For some reason she couldn't quite place, it took Rayla a few seconds to compose herself, but she eventually pressed on.

"Whatcha working on?" she asked, looking over Callum's shoulder to glimpse what he was drawing, before she blinked in surprise. Where she had been expecting a drawing of something-Sol Regem, perhaps, or some of the local wildlife they had seen, she instead found a simple list of words which he was writing down, alongside a series of runes and various primal symbols drawn ahead of each spell to indicate which primal source they drew power from. She quickly recognized his own spells, Aspiro and Fulminis, alongside one other she was unfamiliar with, which was marked with the primal symbol of the moon.

"'Historia Viventem?'" she asked, not recognizing the particular spell. Callum paused as he registered the question, before finishing his drawing of the rune that he remembered.

"It was a spell that Lujanne used while she was giving me a lesson in magic," Callum answered. "She used shadows to depict some ancient Moonshadow Elf ritual from thousands of years ago, before humans and elves were separated."

Rayla nodded, although she was somewhat confused. "But...it's a moon spell. Why are you writing it down?"

Callum paused for a second before answering. "Well...truthfully, I wasn't sure whether or not I should. But ever since I figured out the meaning of the Sky arcanum, I guess I've been feeling like it'd be a good idea to have a list of spells derived from other arcanums. Just in case, you know?"

Rayla nodded slowly, understanding the logic. "That makes sense. I mean, after all, if a human like you can connect with one arcanum, then...well. Who knows?"

The thought was, admittedly, a lot to take in for her. She, and every other elf in Xadia, had been taught that, because humans weren't born with a connection to one of the six primal sources, they couldn't do magic naturally. The only magic they could ever perform without the use of a Primal Stone involved sucking the life out of innocent creatures in an abhorrent perversion of the laws of nature. But Callum...with one breath, he threw-or, rather, **blew**-all of that out of the window. He had become the first human to perform natural primal magic, as far back as anyone could remember. Based on recent events, even Sol Regem, a powerful dragon who had lived for hundreds of years, had never seen anything like it before.

Callum nodded, acknowledging the point. "That's what I've been thinking. Besides, a mage with only two spells on hand isn't really much of a mage at all, is he?" After a minute, another thought occurred to him as he tried and failed to think of any other draconic words he'd happened to hear. "Say, Rayla?"

"Mhm?"

"You mentioned that you know some draconic words, right?"

Rayla's eyes brightened up slightly. "Oh, you want me to tell you what words I know so you can figure out possible spells?"

Callum nodded. "And the accompanying runes, if you happen to know them."

"Well, the runes are just the activation word written in draconic script, so I should be able to help on that front," she answered, before holding out her hand for the book. Callum obliged, handing the pencil to her as she cradled the book on her knees. "Let's see...oh! Here's one!" She wrote down the symbol for moon on the next bullet point Callum had marked down, before writing down the spell in question. Callum looked over her shoulder to see.

"Mystica-arbora," Callum read aloud, wondering what exactly it meant.

"It was a spell Runaan used after I, uh..." Rayla said, pausing as she thought back on her time spent as part of the Moonshadow Elves tasked with assassinating King Harrow. Her eyes flitted off to the side somewhat as the memories nagged at her, before Callum placed a hand on her shoulder, allowing her to push all of it aside. "Anyway, it made all of us and our campsite look like trees to anyone who passed by."

Callum nodded. "That sounds really cool."

Rayla smiled sadly. "Yeah, it kinda was." For a moment, neither of them spoke, but Rayla kept the conversation going when another word sprang to mind. She made a new bullet point and drew the primal symbol of the sun next to it, alongside the word "Ignis" and an accompanying rune.

"Let me guess-'fire?'" Callum asked, to which Rayla nodded. She then put down another one, this time with the primal symbol of the ocean and the word "Aqua." "'Water?'" Rayla nodded again, before writing another word next to the primal symbol of the Earth, "Terra," followed by a question mark and the rune. "'Earth,'" Callum said, which Rayla confirmed, before putting down one more next to another Earth symbol, "Lapis." At this, Callum cocked his head in confusion. Rayla smirked a bit at finally stumping the step-prince.

"'Stone,'" she finished with a smile. Callum smiled sheepishly in turn.

"Got it. Anything else? Something related to the sky, maybe?"

Rayla thought about this for a moment before she came up with another word she knew. Where it called for the symbol, she hesitated, before placing down the symbols for sky and ocean, and the word "Frigis." Callum looked at it for a moment. "'Ice?'" he eventually asked, to which Rayla shrugged.

"More or less," she replied. "I don't know whether it'd apply to the ocean or the sky, though. Because, like, the sky can hail sometimes, but then, water can freeze over, so ice can be present in either. I'm not sure if there's a specific spell for it."

Callum thought it over for a moment before a thought occurred to him. "Maybe there isn't a spell for ice on its own, but it might interact with something else. After all, blizzards are a kind of storm, aren't they? And the Sky arcanum is all about wind and storms and things like that. So maybe that word is one part of a bigger spell."

Rayla thought it over. "Like an icy wind or a blizzard or something?"

"An icy wind..." Callum thought aloud before looking intently at the symbol Rayla had drawn. When he had it locked into his memory, he got up slowly and headed towards the cave entrance. Rayla turned her head to look at him, unsure what he was planning as he turned his attention towards a nearby shrub.

"Callum? What are you doing?" she asked, slightly concerned.

"Testing a theory," Callum replied, before he took a deep breath and drew the symbol for his Aspiro spell in the air, followed by the symbol he had seen for Frigis overlapping the Aspiro symbol. With another deep breath, he executed his experiment.

"Aspiro Frigis!" he cried out before breathing in and exhaling into the path of the symbol. Contrary to the usual burst of air which accompanied the Aspiro spell, an icy wind blew forth from Callum's mouth, freezing the shrub and leaving a sharp series of miniature glaciers along the ground ahead of it before he shut his mouth, ending the spell. Rayla's eyes widened as she watched the display unfold, while Callum took a deep breath and looked over his handiwork with a smile.

"Hm," he remarked. "A bit out of control, but all in all, not too bad for a first attempt. Wouldn't you agree, Rayla?"

As he continued looking over at the results of his handiwork, Rayla simply continued staring at him, struck once again by just what Callum had accomplished. He had done something that no human had ever done. Casting primal magic entirely on his own, developing a connection with a primal arcanum...it was all supposed to be impossible. And yet, somehow, after days of learning and introspection-not to mention spending hours in an actual coma-Callum had done it. The thought stuck in her head for some time, so long that it took her a second to register Callum's voice addressing her.

"Hey, uh, Rayla?" he asked, a concerned expression on his face. "You okay?"

She realized she had been staring at him without saying anything for a solid two minutes. She quickly found her cheeks reddening accordingly as sweat began to build on her forehead.

"Uh, yeah! Yeah, no, I'm fine! I'm good! Just, uh...a little surprised, I guess."

Callum cocked his head. "Surprised?"

"At how you worked out a whole new spell so fast!"

Callum nodded in understanding, although his eyes still betrayed a hint of suspicion at Rayla's condition, even though he seemed unwilling to comment on it. Instead, he simply chuckled. "Yeah, well, what can I say? I'm a fast learner, I guess."

"You can say that again," Rayla said, smiling slightly, her earlier embarrassment gradually subsiding. She found herself lost in thought for another second or two before Callum cleared his throat.

"So, uh, know any other draconic words?"

Rayla snapped herself out of her train of thought once again and nodded quickly. "Uh, yeah, I think I know a few more! Yeah."

She picked up the book which she had set down to her left, letting it rest against her knees once more as she picked up the pencil. Callum smiled and sat back in his previous spot to her right, leaning over her shoulder as he studied the few remaining words and symbols that she wrote upon the page. Zym slept soundly all the while as the two continued to write down and hypothesize the potential arcane uses for every word Rayla could think of. Eventually, when neither of them could keep themselves awake any longer, they drifted off to sleep at roughly the same time, Rayla inadvertently laying her head on Callum's shoulder while Callum's head rested against hers.

* * *

And done! I'd been wanting to write a Dragon Prince fic for a while, ever since I finally caught up to the end of Season 2. Given how recent it is as a fandom, there aren't too many fics on here for it, so I figured adding one or two to the pile could only be a net positive. This is just a one-shot, though, based on an idea I'd been tossing around for a quick little fic about Callum learning more magic after dodging the big scary sun dragon. Might write one or two other such one-shots whenever I find the time and motivation to work on them.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this little bit of fluff, have yourselves a fantastic night, and take care.


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